Avengers Imagines Book

Trauma Bonds

This is one of Lalelu10001's many requests! Here's the first, the others are soon to come. I hope I did it justice :) (also giving a small shoutout to  because they also wanted some more Bucky!)

AFAB!reader (please let me know if you like it when I use this tagging system, and if you have a request, feel free to request different genders!)

You had gone through something. Something awful. Before, the Avengers knew you as the fun and upbeat member. Everyone else already had their own depressing stuff weighing them down, you were a good breath of fresh air.

Then the... incident happened. They never realized how much they took you for granted until it happened. You were hospitalized for a while, had a couple close calls, and then were able to come back to the facility to get through your bedrest.

Of course they all expected you to be in recovery, and not for you to be a happy person. But now it's been a year and you had really only gotten worse. None of them knew what to do. None of them were exactly happy people.

Doesn't mean they didn't try. At first you just responded with an empty look. Then you would get pissed and throw things. This was part of the reason Steve refused to clear you for missions.

Which means you weren't there when they got Bucky. In fact, it took a couple days before you even knew he was at the tower. You didn't exactly spend much time out and about in the tower.

You picked your times wisely, and one of them was near midnight. People weren't exactly asleep, but they usually weren't out in the kitchen, so you'd take that time to grab a bit of food and sit by the window. Some nights you would just curl up on the floor. It felt like that kind of night.

But when you got out there, someone else was sitting on the couch. You didn't recognize them at first which caused you to panic, thinking about what happened.

Then Steve walked out from the kitchen area and saw you, standing in the hallway entrance, your chest rising and falling a bit too quickly.

"Hey, hey, it's okay, it's okay," he immediately said, hurrying over to you. He placed his hands on your arms and tried to regain your attention.

You switched your focus to Steve and found yourself coming back to reality. "Sorry," you whispered, flicking your gaze briefly to the stranger before going back to Steve. "Sorry."

You shook Steve's hands off of your arms, made a quick turn, and hurried back off to your room. Thankfully, Steve knew not to chase after you. He might see you in the morning.

He walked back over to Bucky and saw the expression on his best friends face. "I'm sorry," Bucky said once Steve sat down.

The man shook his head. "It's not your fault, Buck-"

"I don't care what you say, the Winter Soldier's problems are mine, too. Even if I didn't cause them..."

Steve continued to shake his head. "No, Bucky, really it's not your fault. She..." Steve sighed, unsure of how to go about this without revealing more than you'd like. "She had a bad experience a little over a year ago that... that still sticks around. Nothing to do with you or the Winter Soldier."

It made Bucky actually feel a little better knowing he had nothing to do with your reaction, but he still felt bad because he still caused you distress.

"Would it be okay if I apologized? In the morning," Bucky asked.

It made Steve smile and he nodded. "Sure, Buck. I'll be there, just since..."